Find NetCDF Plotting Tools - Easy Solution

[vortmax]

I've been having a hard time finding an appropriate forum for this question let alone put it in the proper board...so feel free to move it if need be.

I am writing a script that polls a specified device on a fixed interval using SNMP and archives the results. The goal is to be able to debug a device by pulling important stats on a regular interval over a period of time. Essentially the same thing the cacti project does, but with simpler and with more flexibility.

Anyway, I've been using round robin databases built with rrdtool because of it's built in graphing functionality, but I'm hitting the limits of it. I really need to use a data structure such as netCDF that allows each data object to be multi-dimensional, have independent resolution and have headers that define details (like units).

This shouldn't be hard as there are perl extensions for netCDF. However I'm looking at the plotting aspect of it. With rrdtool, it's literally one command to generate a graph of the data. Is anyone aware of a package that will generate plot in a standard image format from netcdf through a cli? My only other option is to roll my own with GD (something I don't look forward to).

 

[mmwave]

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your project with us. It sounds like you are working on a valuable tool for debugging devices using SNMP data.

In terms of your question about generating plots from netCDF data through a command line interface, I would recommend looking into the Python package Matplotlib. It is a popular and powerful plotting library that has support for netCDF data through the netCDF4-python package. Matplotlib has a command line interface that allows for easy generation of plots in various image formats. Additionally, there are many tutorials and examples available online for using Matplotlib with netCDF data.

I hope this helps in your project and good luck with your research!

 

[oswaler]

I understand the importance of having the right tools for data analysis and visualization. It can be frustrating to search for a specific tool and not find a suitable solution.

In this case, I would recommend looking into the Panoply software developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. It is a free, cross-platform application that allows for easy visualization of netCDF and other data formats. It also has the capability to create customizable plots with various options for labeling and formatting.

Another option is the NCVIEW software, which is also free and open-source. It allows for viewing and plotting of netCDF data in both 2D and 3D formats.

I hope these suggestions help in finding an easy solution for your netCDF plotting needs. Best of luck with your research!